


Rioara: Lance's Story

by EmmaMelonWriter



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Eventual Keith/Lance (Voltron), Eventual attack on Earth, F/F, F/M, Gay Keith (Voltron), Insecure Lance (Voltron), Lance & Shiro (Voltron) Friendship, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Little Bit of Magic, M/M, New Planet, New world experience, Pets, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Random Characters - Freeform, Shiro is keeping secrets from the team, Slow Burn, klance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-07-13 18:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16023776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaMelonWriter/pseuds/EmmaMelonWriter
Summary: Lance leaves the team. It was long overdue for him.There was no war when they get to Earth and he ends up staying behind.It doesn't last long after someone crashes on the beaches of Cuba.They instantly connect and off Lance goes to space again.To a planet that has been hidden for over 200,000 years.Lance tries to figure out who he is and what path he was meant to follow in his life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there might be a lot of questions.  
> Trust me things will be answered in time.   
> Things that were left out and even the smallest thing will be answered in time.  
> There is a lot that will be coming up and this is all about Lance.   
> This whole fic will be surrounding him. He will change in time, but not in like a serious way.

“I’m not coming with you.”

These words shocked everyone as the team looked at Lance. Expecting him to be joking and laugh it all off. They had rebuilt the ship and were heading back to space to continue this war. Everything was perfect now. They had the whole group back, so why did he suddenly want to leave? 

Keith was the one who decided to talk, since they already had this talk once. “Lance. We’ve been over this.” He was going to continue, but stopped himself when Lance put up his hand to signal for him to stop.

“I’m sorry, but that’s not what this is about. I can’t be part of Voltron anymore. It’s nothing with you guys…It’s me and I need a break from this.” He wasn’t getting on that ship. He wasn’t going back to space. He wasn’t going to pilot any lion. He was going to stay on Earth.

“Who is going to pilot red then? You can’t go!” Pidge was horrified at what was happening. She didn’t want to leave behind someone she has gotten so close with. She thought of Lance as a brother after this whole time. He was their sharpshooter.

As if on cue Lance summoned his Bayard and walked over to Keith. “Here. Red still accepts you, so Shiro can have the black lion.”

Keith didn’t even attempt to grab the Bayard. “Lance…I’m not taking that. Red is yours now. Not mine. Just come back with us.” Keith was begging him not to leave. He didn’t want Lance to leave from their group. It was horrible. Why was this happening suddenly?

Lance moved to grabbed Keith’s hand and made him wrap his fingers around the Bayard to hold it. “Red has never been mine. Red has always belonged to you and was waiting for you to return.” Lance stepped back from the group and smiled sadly. “I’m not saying I never belonged on the team. Just I know it’s my time to step down. I’ve known this for a while and I think this is a good opportunity.”

“We get it.” Shiro moved towards Lance setting his hand on his shoulder. “If you think you need this we won’t stop you.” The rest of the group were looking at Shiro like he grew an extra head. “Just know…when you’re ready to come back to the team we are waiting for you. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us.”

 

Lance was wandering down the beaches of Cuba, it’s been a little over a month. The sun was setting and it shined off the water. It was beautiful. He had stayed a little over two weeks with his family before he had left. He loved his family, but after all this time his heart was somewhere else. The team had went back to fighting and now he was here. How could he just ignore all of the fighting?

He was completely lost.

No idea where he was going.

He didn’t belong with Voltron and he knew this within his heart.

There was a loud explosion sound as something broke the atmosphere. Lance jumped at the sudden sound as he looked up and saw something fall from the sky. Flashbacks from Shiro flooded back into his head. Nothing could have happened to the team in just a month, right?

Whatever it was had crashed a few miles away and Lance was running. Hoping that whatever it was it wasn’t one of the team members.

When he finally managed to spot it he ducked behind anything he came in contact with. The ship was not one he has ever seen. It was midnight black with weird blue markings along the side. The markings seemed to glow against the sun. The whole ship was slick and was shaped in an arrow tip form. It was also on its side and he wondered if whoever was in there was even alive.

As if on cue the top of the ship opened and someone fell out. Lance moved closer so he could see more. The alien that fell out looked almost human. Almost. The alien’s features were basically like that of a human. Even the ears! The skin though was a dark midnight color and he had markings up his arms that were red. He even had hair that was a complete mess. It seemed so curly though and the sides were shaved off. He looked so…human. He has never seen such an alien, and he has seen a lot.

What was this alien doing here? Why was he traveling so close to Earth?

Lance moved closer slightly and ended up stepping on some twig. The noise made the alien turn around. This creature didn’t look scared or on guard. Just calm. “Who’s there?” The alien’s voice was rough and deep.

Lance had two choices at this very moment. Turn around and act like nothing happened. Just live his life on Earth. Or, step out and greet this guy.

Lance took a breath before stepping out of his hiding place. He raised his arms as he looked the alien dead in the eyes. Even his eyes were different. His sclera was a dark blue instead of white. The middle was a hard black. Lance had no words at that moment.

“Lance, right?” The alien turned away and managed to move the ship back to its normal angle. With his bare hands. Was that normal?

“How…How do you know my name?” Lance was completely confused at what was happening.

“You’re part of Voltron, or at least you were.” He walked to the back of the ship and popped open a panel on the side. “I know all about you guys. I’ve seen you guys a ton of times too.”

“How…?” Lance was curious. How has he missed seeing him? Lance took the chance getting closer to the said creature.

“You can relax. I can feel your nerves from here. I’m not going to hurt you, we were fighting the same war.” He started pulling wires and reconnecting them with different stuff.

“Why…Why aren’t you nervous or scared? You crashed on this planet and your ship is down. Shouldn’t you be panicking?”

The creature turned his attention to Lance once again. He stayed silent looking at the boy. “I shouldn’t be so rude.” He pulled away from the panel and reached out his hand. “My name is Damen and I’m not panicked because I know this planet. My people have come to this planet for thousands and thousands of years.”

This didn’t help. Lance had even more questions than answers. “What do you mean? Why don’t you use the time system that everyone else seems to use? Why are you using ours?”

Damen smiled. He loved questions so much. It seemed weird, but to him each question was something to learn from. There were no dumb questions and he was always happy to answer anything. His hand fell to his side. “As I said, my people have visited this planet numerous of times. We’ve taken a lot of your culture and made it our own. My planet isn’t as huge as yours, but we’ve managed. Plus, we’ve made your technology into something completely different. If you would compare us to how you guys are right now, we’re probably 20,000 years ahead of you guys.”

Lance took all the information in. He still had a ton of questions, but he needed to move on for the moment. “You said you’ve seen me…us. How have you seen us? I don’t remember even once seeing you.”

“That means we’ve done a good job. We fight the war too. Just a lot differently than you guys. We keep to the shadows and hide…fighting the smaller parts and winning.”

Lance was unsure about everything. He wasn’t sure what to think. Wouldn’t there be some sort of trace that they were there?

Damen could sense the nerves coming from Lance. It wasn’t that hard to figure out. This was a very interesting situation. “Can I ask you two questions?”

Lance nodded not wanting to speak. He didn’t trust his voice at the moment.

“Why did you leave Voltron? Why did you step out when you could have ran away?” Two very simple questions and he had no idea how to even answer them.

Lance stayed silent and looked down at his feet. He thought he knew the first question when he had left, but in reality he had no idea

“I’ll give you a couple days to think about it.” Damen had turned to look at the wiring of his ship. “This is going to take me some time to fix, so why don’t we start a fire?” Damen walked away from the ship looking around for some wood that might be laying around. “Unless you have something else you need to get done?”

“No.” Lance answered right away. “I’ll help you.”

 

“So…” Lance was watching Damen intently as he was showing off the suit. It was early morning and they had just eaten breakfast. They went to sleep right away last night after they got the fire going. “These are standard suits you guys have?”

“Sort of. Each one kind of changes with the individual. Not everyone are fallers or runners. Each suit comes with a gravity button though and our mic and camera systems.”

The suit was basically spandex, but was hard-wearing. The material was made to be strong and not tear from a single shot. They were also made-to-measure for each individual, so it always took a bit of time to make a couple for someone.

The actual suit was almost completely black, but the metal on Damen’s was red. The first piece of metal that stood out was the deep V-neck collar that sunk all the way down to the upper part of his stomach. It didn’t seem like he was that bothered by the weight though. The other pieces looked like they were stitched into the suit itself. They were designed into the side of the legs. The first piece started on the hip and went down to the lower part of his thigh that went around halfway. There were even knee caps on the suit shaped in diamonds.

“You still haven’t explained the whole fallers and runners…”

Damen laughed. “Right. Fallers are people who…” Damen put his wrist through a thin piece of string that was in a small pocket on the suit. He put his arms out straight as wing like material came into view. “They are able to glide around in the air after free falling. This material is really resistant against the wind and makes you very agile in the air.”

“Woah!” Lance’s eyes went wide as he looked at the material. “How does this happen? Where was this hiding?” He had moved over to look all around the material. “Fallers are amazing…”

“There is a little flap on the side that hides the extra cloth. It fits in easy and you just…” Damen pressed a little button on the side after he took the string off of his wrist. The material basically folded itself back into that little flap. “There.”

Lance just stared wide eyed for a moment. “Magic.”

“No. There is electricity through the whole suit and you can bend it to do whatever you want.” Damen was so amused at Lance’s reactions. “Runners, are basically what they sound like too. Their shoes though offer a boost and it’s almost like running on air…just really fast.”

“So, you’re just a faller?”

“I’m actually both. Only a handful of people can do both, which seems weird. Trust me. I know. Just some are better at one over the other. That’s really all.”

“I think fallers are amazing. Who wouldn’t want to fall through the air like that?” Lance was really excited about all this information. He never knew something like this even existed. He wanted to learn more and he kind of wished he could see it with his own eyes.

“Why don’t you come with me?”

Lance froze and his eyes went wide by the sudden question. “What?” Could he actually go? Was that actually an option?

“Yeah, come with me. You can learn more about the planet and the culture. If you want I can also train you.”

This was happening really fast. They just met last night and now he is offering to take him to this planet? “Wait. Wait. Why me? Why offer? You could easily leave me here.”

“You’re lost.” Damen gave Lance a small smile. “You left Voltron for something you don’t even know. I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for, but it’s a good place to start.”

Damen was right though. He was extremely lost. Earth just wasn’t doing what he had hoped and now all he wanted to do was go back to space. “Yeah…I’ll go.” Lance met Damen’s eyes. “I totally call trying to be a faller. That sounds so exciting!”

 

These next few days Damen and Lance talked about their own adventures. Lance got more information on Damen’s planet, which was called Rioara. The planet was mostly water with three different areas of land. There was wildlife that lived on the land and in the water. So much of this planet resembled Earth and that included the wildlife. 

The main island was the biggest and was the size of the United States, so it was a pretty decent size. The outer part was mostly very dense forest and fields with farm land on it. There were small towns all around, but the biggest was right in the middle that stretched for hundreds and hundreds of miles.

The second island was mostly used to keep the machine for their shield running. This machine is how they have stayed hidden all these 200,000 years. It stretched out a shield that blocked anything from entering their atmosphere and it also kept the planet hidden. There are towers all around this island that have people constantly watching the shield. If you wanted to enter you had to call and give them the “code of the day”.

The shield at first wasn’t working the best, but they did their best until they stumbled upon Earth. They learned so much from the little gadgets that they started fusing their own technology. Electricity is their main element since they know how to bend and use that to their liking.

The third island is the smallest, but the most sacred. It’s the heart of the planet and the whole place seemed alive. It actually was. The whole planet is alive. It controls the growth of everything and the wildlife on the planet.

 

Damen was holding out his right arm for Lance to look at the markings on his arms. There were a bunch of swirly red markings. According to Damen the markings went up to his shoulders and there were a couple going down his chest and back. “These are so cool…”

“They are the markings from the ceremony from Rioara.” Damen moved his arm away from Lance and held out his hand away from both of them. Fire flickered to life at the tips of Damen’s fingers. “Cool, right?”

“So cool” Lance grinned looking at the fire until it went out. “So…how does it all work? You say it’s a ceremony, but like...details.”

Damen laughed. “Are you sure? It’s pretty long.”

“I’m pretty sure we have plenty of time.”

“Alright.” Damen was silent for a moment figuring the words he wanted to use. “So, when the war started Rioara wanted to fight back. The people at that time didn’t want to be part of something so senseless. We were safe within the shield, so to them they were safe. They didn’t need to be part of this bloodshed.” Damen let out a small sigh. “The ceremony is held on one of our islands. Only certain people are allowed on the island since it’s so sacred.”

“That’s the one that’s basically pulsing, right? That’s how you explained it.”

“Yeah, there is a small lake right in the middle of that island. The water is clearer than the water surrounding the rest of the planet. Which, once you see that water you’ll be wondering how that’s even possible. The lake dyes this pinkish color when the individual accepts the process.” Damen cut himself off not knowing how to explain the rest.

“Okay…then what?”

Damen glanced over at Lance before looking back out at the ocean. “Listen, only individuals who are strong with body and mind can fully be accepted. You can’t have any doubts and you have to give yourself fully to Rioara.”

“Damen?”

“You die. No matter what happens you’ll drown in the water and die.”

Lance’s eyes widen at the words.

“If your body accepts the process then you are basically reborn. You’ll gain scaring on your arms that’ll eventually take form of tattoos, but you’ll also be in pain for a while as they heal. That pain…is horrible.”

“What…What if your body doesn’t accept it?”

“You die. Just like I said. You don’t come back after that. That’s just the end. It’s why we don’t have a lot of people who have these powers. They either don’t want to risk their life, or they do the ceremony and never wake back up. We think…it’s just Rioara’s way of keeping balance.”

Lance sat back against a rock trying to process the information. He was shocked. It all seemed so cool at first…but that was rather dark. They were in a war he supposed.

“Zerna, my wife, is able to use air to her liking. You should see her freefall.” Damen elbowed Lance trying to make him feel slightly better. Which somehow worked, because he wanted to know more about her.

Zerna. She was the daughter of the leaders of the planet. She also had very strong feelings about the war and wanting to help stop it, but of course she was young. Naive. She lashed out at her parents and the people of the planet. Never understanding why they wouldn’t help. They had the means to help and that’s what she set out to do.

 

There was one night when there was a fleet located near their planet. She had demanded her parents to do at least something about the ships. It was an easy no and Zerna flipped out. Yelling about if they wouldn’t do anything then she would. She set off that night with a ship and a gun and a sword. She had little experience with fighting though and only took out a couple drones before getting captured. Having never seen a species of her kind they had planned on experimenting on her. It was a couple days before the date. They needed to starve her and get as much information out of her as they could.

In that time Zerna’s parents planned an attack to get their daughter back. Damen and his team were the best suited for this mission. They had to use suits that they used for skydiving, but were added with little extra things. These suits ended up being the basic structure for their future suits. They entered the ship and did their best to hide away from the soldiers. They made heaps of mistakes, since they’ve never done anything like this before. Sooner or later they made their way to Zerna, but they couldn’t stop from getting caught. They had to fight their way out and back to their ship. Ultimately disappearing from the line of sight and disappearing.

Zerna was mad to say the least. She wanted to at least die fighting than go back. That night though Damen promised to help her with her goal. He didn’t want to see chaos fall and hide away forever. It was time for a new era for their people. Which is how they both ended up on that island. How they ended up doing the ceremony and gained something that they could have never imagined. The people were mad to say the least, but after ten years they finally got a good chunk of people on their side. A new generation was coming in and they were eager to fight alongside them.

Zerna and Damen fell in love nonetheless. Got married when they were still young and they were still going strong. They loved each other deeply and that night has been etched into their mind ever since.

 

“Are you almost ready?” Damen was setting up a couple things in the wiring before finally closing the panel.

“Yup!” Lance grinned extremely excited. He just put his bags in the back of the ship. He had said goodbye to his family yesterday, so all that was left was to go.

“Great.” Damen opened up the pod and hopped into his seat. “Get in.”

Lance got into the seat right beside Damen. “Wait. You crashed before, so how do you know it won’t happen again?”

Damen closed the pod and started everything up. There was a screen that showed up in front of them that showed the status of everything and what was in front of them. “Some of the wiring got loose last time. We are still testing out some new features and it kind of messed up our pods a bit. This was supposed to be a test run. It should be fine now. I changed up some of the wiring and sealed them up.”

“Should be.” Lance did air quotes as he stared at Damen. “We’re going to die.”

Damen laughed, hard. “Maybe you. Not me.” He finally got the pod lifting slightly off the ground. It charged up a bit before taking off.

Lance was nervous at first, but it was a lot calmer than what he had expected. Smoother even. It’s not like there were windows to look out from. “Do you think that your people will like me?”

“I don’t know. We’ve never had anyone besides us on the planet. Everyone knows about Voltron and everything you guys have done. I don’t think they will have a problem. We all want to change, so they’ll be fine.”

“It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

“I might be.” Damen was joking.

Lance rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat getting comfortable. “Do you think…I could make a call?”

Damen raised an eyebrow glancing over at Lance. He shrugged and leaned over pressing a couple buttons. The screen split in half and a keypad popped up on Lance’s side. “Go ahead.”

Lance’s eyes were wide at what had just happened. “Oh my gosh…this is amazing. Your tech is amazing. You can still see everything too!” He had leaned over to Damen’s side looking at his screen.

Damen laughed. “Lance, let me drive. Do you want me to crash again?”

Lance paused and pulled away his face slightly red. “Right…sorry. Just it’s cool.” Lance punched in a couple things before starting the call.

“Relax, its fine. I’ve never seen someone so interested in this and it’s great. I can’t wait for you to see everything.”

“I’m so excited…” Lance was going to continue, but a familiar face popped up on the screen.

_“Uhh…?”_

He grinned. “Are you alone?” Lance saw him glance around before walking away from whoever he was with.

_“Yes. What’s going on? Where are you?”_

“First off, Shiro, I would like you to meet Damen.” Lance pointed over to Damen.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Damen smiled and waved.

Shiro waved back very awkwardly. _“What exactly is going on?”_

“So, he ended up crashing on Earth and I found him. No big deal. Well, we got to talking and he asked if I wanted to go back to his planet. Which I said yes! They are amazing, Shiro! Their stuff is seriously advance. Pidge would probably love to see it.”

_“I thought you wanted to stay on Earth?”_

“Yeah…” Lance rubbed the back of his neck trying to think of the words. “I only stayed on Earth because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I know I wanted to leave the team. Kind of go down my own path and I realized pretty fast that I didn’t want to be out of the war. I couldn’t go back to Voltron however.”

_“I understand. Do you not want to talk to the rest of the team?”_

“No. Not because I don’t want to see them or anything. Just…I think it would make being away harder. I’ll tell them when I’m ready.”

_“That’s fine. You can call me for anything if need be. We might need to pick a safer way to…hide it. I can’t just accept your calls whenever and leave the room. They’ll get suspicious about that.”_

“You could always call wait five seconds and hang up?” Damen decided to cut in on the conversation. “That’s an option right?”

Lance grinned. “Oh! I like that. We can do that with each other and whenever one of us have time we can call back.”

Shiro smiled and nods. _“That sounds perfect. We’ll talk later, Lance. We were in the middle of a meeting.”_

Lance nodded and both of them said goodbye before ending the call. “I was so nervous.”

“He seems pretty supportive about everything.” Damen pressed a couple buttons and the screen went back to what it was before. “That’s a good sign in a leader.”

“Yeah…That’s why I called him. It’s harder to talk to the others about this. Shiro…I feel like is the one who would understand and not try and get me to come back.”

Damen nodded and didn’t say anything else on the subject. The rest of the ride was Damen telling Lance stories from when he was younger. Lance was eager to listen to every single story.

 

“We’re here.” Damen spoke up awhile later. The pod had some amazing speed Lance has never seen before. They really were on a completely different level than everyone else.

Lance glanced at the screen eager to see this planet, but was met with just space. “What? Where is the planet?”

“Remember the shield around our planet?”

“Yeah…I just you know…thought it showed some other random planet or something.”

“No? That’s a lot more work. We made it invisible.” Damen started pressing buttons and a screen popped up calling one of the towers.

“Invisible!?”

“Yup.” Damen was grinning as the screen popped up to an older man. “Hey Jerad. My code is 9-9-6-1.”

The man nodded and was punching something in on his side. Lance took this moment to look at the guy. His hair was long and gray and instead of the dark blue, like Damen has, his eyes were a light pink color. “Alright.” Jared started. “You have landing platform Z.”

“Alright, thank you!” Damen ended the call. “Watch what happens.”

Lance glanced over at Damen extremely curious, but his eyes went back to the screen. It was like space was moving and the spot in front of them opened up. Right in the middle was the planet. It was blue…very blue. They entered through the force field and was soon in the atmosphere of the planet. Damen had slowed down when they saw the ocean.

The water was crystal clear. You could easily see what was in the water and there were a lot of fish swimming around. Huge ones that would surface jumping around. Playing. They reminded him of dolphins…just a lot bigger. They were two different shades of color of pink and orange. Each pattern was different and just a mesh of those colors.

Lance’s eyes were wide as he looked at all the different creatures swimming around. They were bigger than the fish on Earth and a lot more colorful. He’d have to see them up close at some point.

There was a loud bang onto of the pod and it caused Lance to jump at the sound. Damen grinned as the screen disappeared and the blackness that surrounded them turned into…windows? All he knew is that he could see outside in all different directions. Plus this random guy who was waving at both of them. This guy was on top of the pod just waving. Was this normal?

“Fallers are training.” Damen answered the unspoken question.

The guy stood up once Damen waved back and ran off the pod jumping. He went down one second and was gliding in the air another. The flaps on his arms spread out as he moved around in the air. A couple minutes later they were surrounded by others who waved over at them.

It was all amazing and Lance really wanted to be a part of it.

“Hey.” Damen elbowed Lance, so he would pay attention to him again. “We’re about to come up to the island.”

The fallers had went down for some reason, but the moment Damen mentioned the island his attention was focused on that. They passed large trees that were double the size than on Earth. There were brief glances of random animals around the trees and creatures flying around. The forest seemed pretty dense and full of life.

Then the forest ended suddenly and was replaced with fields that stretched forever. They passed different fields that were very obviously growing different crops. They passed little town spots that had cattle and what not around them.

“We’re here.” Damen pointed out the window.

They were barely in view, but Lance saw the edge of the city. At first it was all small houses that people obviously lived at. They weren’t kidding when they said that they took a lot of culture from Earth.

It all seemed so futuristic. He was pretty sure he saw a car type vehicle flew out of a garage…that was on the roof? Definitely different than Earth.

 

Soon, they were in the inner part of the city and the buildings were tremendously tall. Damen even had to maneuver around the buildings. They were sparkly white though and huge screens with advertisements on most of them. They were obviously in the shopping district. He could see the crowds of people walking around below them.

The arena. They had passed this huge football size arena. He remembered Damen briefly bringing it up in one of their many conversations. This is where everyone trained and where they had their holiday, Day of Recreation. If he remembered right it was the day when the citizens of Rioara came together and agreed to fight this war. It’s also when their whole meaning to life changed from what it once was. It was a very meaningful holiday that they cherish.

They entered another clearing in the middle of the city. It was busy with other pods that were coming and going. There were a couple bigger ships that were sitting on the ground not doing anything. They made their way to a platform and Damen landed the pod.

“What do you think so far?” Damen powered down the pod and opened up the top, so they could get out. “It must be a lot to take in.” He hopped out and stretched his arms.

Lance did the exact same. It was cramp in there and they were in there for a good chunk of time. He was sore. “I would like to think I’ve seen a lot…You know with being with Voltron and traveling. This place is like a whole different world! No pun intended, but like I’ve never seen most of this stuff. In movies, but never in real life. I’m guessing there is more. I actually can’t wait!” Lance was grinning looking at Damen.

“You have no idea. I can’t wait to show you.” Damen walked down the flights of stairs that went up to the landing pad. “We’re going to head over to the building I live at.”

Lance was busy looking around at the sky. There were little creatures flying around and they almost resembled birds. There was so much to take in around him. He barely register the words coming from Damen. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of time to take in everything. There is no rush.” Damen was still very amused with Lance.

They ended up taking one the flying cars that Lance thought he saw earlier. It was a thing and Lance was extremely into it. “Pidge would have such a blast…” He caught himself saying. It wasn’t a surprise that he missed the team. He was with them every day since they left for space. They grew close and they formed a little family.

He regretted leaving them. The moment they left him behind it became painfully obvious that he made a mistake. He wanted to run after them and say he was just kidding. It was all a joke. He would never leave them.

Obviously that didn’t end up happening. As much as he wanted to he knew that he needed this. At first he had no idea why, but after Damen crashed things became clear. Whatever path he was meant to walk down it was evident Damen and Rioara was a part of that route.

“That’s the building we’re going to tomorrow to get you fitted for your suit.” Damen’s voice cut through Lance’s thoughts. “I’ll also show you the training area and the drop station for the fallers.”

Lance blinked coming out of his thoughts. He looked at the said building and it was tall to say the least. There was this huge billboard that showed video feed of the suits and the different designs and structures. It was amazing. “I didn’t know they came in so many…different colors. For the metal I mean.”

“You’ve felt the medal before, right? It’s extremely light weight and it comes from our mines from below the ocean. Rioara supplies us the metal. It’s basically what our whole city runs on. I don’t think I ever really explain that.” Damen chuckled.

“Rioara is amazing.” Lance mumbled out. “How did you guys figure out the whole electrical stuff?”

“Oh. We’re actually passing the place.” Damen pointed out at a building that stood a lot taller than the rest around it. There were multiple billboard around the building displaying different kinds of gadgets. Some of the gadgets were on the suit and some were just everyday uses. “This is our research facility. They research everything on this planet from gadgets on the suits, to making everyday lives easier, to random diseases that pop up, and anything else. The electrical stuff that I keep talking about was a complete accident. I don’t know the full story, since I wasn’t really alive during that time. It happened before I was born. It was something about an accident during a storm. I’ll be honest…school wasn’t my strong suit. They said the story so many times, but I just never paid much mind to it.”

Lance blinked completely surprised. “Wait. Seriously?”

“Yes.” Damen rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I had other things on my mind and I wasn't exactly…what’s the word? It was a bit hard to retain all the information that they threw at me. I was better at other stuff, but it just came a bit…hard to me.”

“I understand.” Lance smiled looking at Damen. “I have a really bad memory with certain stuff. I scribble on my hands and arms all the time just to remember stuff. My teachers were really upset and I was accused of cheating so many times. I think somewhere I gave up with it all, but I understood it all in the long run. It just…helped with writing things down. No one really got that.”

Damen’s head went back and he let out aloud laugh. “We completely got sidetracked by the original question.” He let out a sigh before speaking again. “You’ll get to meet the head scientist at some point. He’s actually a really close friend of mine. We grew up together and when I gained my own team he was a part of it. I trust him with me life…even though he doesn’t do much fighting anymore.”

“I’ll be happy to meet him.” Lance was grinning. “I can’t wait to start.”

“Speaking of which.” Damen pointed out the window. “We’re here.”

Lance instantly looked where he was pointing. The building was tall and made of mostly of glass. It was in the middle of what he was guessing was their town square sort of. There was no other buildings around it and the ground had multiple water fountains surrounding the building. There were even gardens and little vendor areas on the outer parts of the building. “Fancy…”

Damen laughed. “You’ll finally meet my wife.” The car landed on top of the building and they both exited from the vehicle. Lance was still looking around as they left. He was following behind Damen as they walked towards the door to go inside. “You’re going to fall if you don’t watch where you’re going.” Just to prove his point he stopped suddenly and Lance knocked into him.

Lance made some sort of squeaking sound and grabbed Damen, so he wouldn’t fall over. “That’s so rude.” He grumbled pulling back from him.

Damen just laughed and opened the door revealing an elevator. “Get in.”

Lance glanced at him being cautious and carefully stepped into the elevator. “So, you said you guys live here. Where am I going to stay then?”

Damen stepped in after Lance and pressed the second to the bottom number. “You’ll be living here too. Zerna and I are on floor 58 and you’ll probably be on floor 57.”

Lance was about to ask for clarification, but the doors opened and there stood a woman. She had extremely long hair that went past her thighs and it was thick. There was so much hair and it was extremely curly, but manageable? Her hair was also a really dark red and it really brought out her sky blue eyes. Her skin was the same midnight color as Damen’s, but softer toned? There were a couple of freckles (?) around her skin. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure if they consider them freckles or not. Her clothes were nothing special, but she made them look amazing. Sweat pants that hung extremely slack and a baggy shirt that was pretty obviously not hers. Obviously she didn’t particularly care about her appearance at the moment, but it worked for her. Amazingly. The look on her face though she was mad. That was probably a weak word for how she looked.

“Hey….” Damen started, but was completely cut off.

“You could have at least called me!” she snapped. “What was I supposed to think when you suddenly disappeared? Do you understand how worried I was about you? How much…How much I don’t want to lose you? You scared me…” She was starting to tear up from anger and hurt.

“Baby…” Damen went right up to her and hugged her close. “You know fully well that you can never get rid of me. No matter how much you have tried.” He ran his fingers through her hair trying to calm Zerna. “Also!” He suddenly pulled away and gestured towards Lance. “This is Lance. He is going to stay with us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the first chapter.  
> Give me some feedback if you would like!  
> Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a while, but after season 8 I just need to do this.   
> Cause wow.  
> That's all.  
> Anyways, this is going to be slow.  
> I'll try updating this twice a week.  
> With a lot of different plot points. I'm not going to overload it. Just going to work through it slowly.   
> So, enjoy the ride!

“It’s a bit tight.” Lance tried to move the collar of the suit away. “Is this normal?”

“Don’t touch it. Just let the guy work. He’s only trying to get a decent measurement for you.” Damen was sitting on a chair going through a magazine that had different designed suits and colors of the metals. “What are you thinking for your color?”

“I was thinking blue.” Lance flinched, when the guy who was working on his suit tightened up the fabric around his waist a bit roughly.

“Sorry…” The man mumbled completely focused on what he was doing. “These things kind of need to be a bit tight. Of course it won’t be like this with your actual suit.” He turned to mark something on a paper before continuing.

Damen flipped through the magazine trying to locate that set of colors. “Alright.” He flipped it around so Lance could see all the different shades of blue that he could choose from. “Anything that catches your interest?”

Lance let his eyes roam through the different shades of blue. Nothing really caught his interest right away. He frowned going through it again before shaking his head. “No…nothing really stands out to me.” He loved the color blue and it seemed like that flew out the window.

“Are you set on blue?” Damen asked starting to flip through the pages. He was obviously looking for something.

“No? I guess I can try a different color.” Lance was obviously disappointed. He really wanted blue, but the colors just…didn’t match who he was at the moment.

“Here we go.” Damen stood up and walked over to Lance. He was careful about the guy still working on the measurements. “Take a look at this.” He handed over the magazine and pointed to a little spot. It was a dark purple and the shade was apparently called wine. There were spots around the color with a lighter shade of purple. It looked pretty.

“It looks alright…” Lance started just staring down at the color. It was on paper, so how could he really judge it? Maybe he should go back to the blue section and pick something.

“Oh. I have samples in the back if you’re interested in that color or any color in that matter.” The guy working pipped up. He stopped for a second to glance over to see what they were looking at. “Oh. I really like this one. Not many people make it that far into the magazine before picking something. This is in our mix color section. I’ll be right back.” He smiled leaving for the back to get the sample.

Lance glanced over at Damen nervously. “I just…kind of thought blue was going to be my color. It always has and I don’t know…”

Damen offered a smile. “No. I get it. My favorite color has always been orange. I was completely set on getting some shade of orange on my suit, but I ended up with this crimson red. The shade really stood out to me and it was like calling for me. I know it seems weird, but that’s how it felt.”

Lance wanted to say more, but a moment later this piece of metal was being shoved into his view. He actually felt his heart stop at the view. The darker color of purple matched the lighter color of purple spread around it. It reminded him of space. It was perfect. “I’ll take this.” He said instantly.

“Perfect!” The guy smiled at Lance. “I’ll get it all ordered. I just need your shoe size and I’ll get everything ready.”

 

Lance found himself extremely high up on a post in the arena they had passed by when they were first flying through the city. Damen wanted to show off the training equipment before heading off to their new destination. It was amazing with a track going around the whole area and a huge area in the middle. There was a ton of equipment set up on the bottom that reminded him of stuff from track. Just…a lot more hardcore.

Like the post he was on was a great example. He had climbed a latter to get up here and he was easily twenty feet high and there were more posts in front of him that went downwards to the ground. There was nothing around to catch him if he fell off at this moment and he actually thought he was insane for wanting to try this. Out of everything that was around he wanted to try to run down something that he could probably kill himself doing. There was something he could do pullups on and he picked this.

He was insane. He was also going to die attempting this.

“You okay up there?” He heard Damen’s voice interrupt his thoughts.

“Why did you allow me to do this? I’m going to die.” He felt his legs shake just looking down. He wasn’t afraid of heights or anything, but something about being up on a post with nothing to save him from the fall was scary.

“I’m not going to let you fall and die. Trust me you can do this. Just take it slow. You don’t have to rush through it. Just one hop at a time. You’re not trying to set a record here.”

Lance took a deep breath trying to calm himself. He can do this. Just one jump at a time. There was no way Damen would let him fall to his death. It’s only twenty feet. Easy. “Okay…” Lance mumbled to himself and finally jumped to the first post.

It was a weird and great experience jumping through the air to that post. He couldn’t explain what it was just…something.

“Hey! You made the first jump!” Damen yelled, clearly excited for him. “You only got 19 more to go!”

Lance blinked and looked straight ahead. He could totally do it. He took another jump and another and he was just flying down. He hit the tenth one eventually.

“Woah! You’re a natural!”

The voice was right behind Lance and it startled him when he landed. He messed up his footing and slipped off of the pole. A hand immediately went out and grabbed onto his wrist holding him up.

“Woah. Don’t want you to fall.”

Lance blinked staring up at this random guy who just suddenly appeared. He looked to be around his age, but he still had no idea how the whole aging thing worked here. This guy was smiling at Lance like he had no care in the world. He had extremely curly hair that was blonde with light purple highlights. His eyes were completely black and they were like looking into a void.

Lance got pulled back up to the top of the pole and they were standing inches from each other. “Cat got your tongue?” He smirked and moved past Lance going down the rest of the poles. He only used one foot to move from pole to pole.

“Woah…” Lance mumbled out and turned to follow after this mystery guy. He had to use both feet like before to move from pole to pole. “You’re so fast at this…” Lance mumbled finally landing on the ground.

“Takes a lot of training! Trust me on that!” His grin was wide and he eventually held out his hand. “Sorry! My name is Grim and I didn’t mean to spook you earlier.”

Lance glanced from Grim’s hand to his face multiple times. He reached out his hand and took ahold of Grim’s. “Name’s Lance.” He smiled back.

“Lance? Great name.” Grim gave Lance an even wider grin. “I guess I’ll see you around. I need to get back to my group.” He tapped his heels of his feet together and took off into a run to the tallest post. All the sudden his shoes turned into rockets that he used to gain up speed going up the pole. Grim pushed himself up at the last step and activated the wings on his suite. He glided out of view of the two.

“What…that was amazing?” Lance was completely shocked. Was this how it was to be fully trained? He could feel himself started to shake in excitement. He couldn’t wait.

“Alright kid…we still have places to go. I think our next place is finally getting you a weapon.” Damen had turned around pulling out a phone looking product. It instantly caught his attention.

“Oh! What’s that? Can I see?” Lance was instantly by Damen’s side trying to get a good look.

Damen instantly handed it over to Lance to look at. “It’s our phones. It works exactly how yours on Earth do. Except it doesn’t work with a battery, but the electricity in the air.”

“So…it’s just automatically charged?” Lance was looking through the object that was basically like his old little phone he had messed around with on the ship. It was gray though with black boarders. Lance pressed a random button and a screen popped out of the phone and he was pretty startled and almost dropped the phone. “This is something out of the movies!”

Damen laughed and leaned over pressing the same button to get rid of the screen. “Yes it is, but it’ll only charge in our atmosphere.”

“I need to get myself one of these.” Lance finally handed it back to Damen. “I feel like it’s just errand day though.”

“We have a lot to do before I start training you. You’ll need your weapon and get used to it and you will be doing physical training too.” He glanced over and smirked. “And aren’t you lucky to be training with one of the best warriors on Rioara.”

Lance raised an eyebrow and glanced over. “You’re going to totally kick my ass. I just want you to know that now.” It took a moment to process the weapon part. “Wait! Weapon? What do you mean? I didn’t see you with a weapon when you were on Earth.”

“How else do you expect to fight against the Galra?”

“Oh. Right. Weapons would make sense.” Lance felt silly about being so confused. Of course he would need something to fight with. “What do you use? Just your fire?”

“Actually, I have a double bladed staff. I wanted to improve it a bit, so I asked her to make some improvements. I’m adding a chain to it so I can pull it apart. Zerna came up with the idea and I love it.”

“Hm. It would make sense to use guns for me, right? Considering that’s what I have more practice with.”

“I mean...if you want to go that route you can. You can try something else. That’s not illegal.” Damen rounded the corner of the block and changed his direction heading into the building. “You don’t have to use a gun if you don’t want to.”

Lance felt his lips twitch to a smile. He wanted to change, so this would be a great start. The both walked into the building and it was kind of plain looking. Nothing like the building for suits.

“Hello!” A young girl came bouncing out of the back room. She had extremely short blonde curly hair. She was probably a good couple years younger than Lance. He kind of wondered why she was working at such a young age. “I’m Bria- Oh! Damen! Did you come for your weapon? I do have to say that I think this was my best work! You’ll love it!”

Damen laughed at her excitement. “Yes, but also I’m here with someone new. His name is Lance and he is from Earth. He’ll be staying here for a while.” He turned to Lance. “Lance this is Bria and she works part time here…even though she is basically here all the time.”

“Hey! It’s nice to meet you!” Lance stretched out his hand to her.

She took it right away and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you Lance! Now, what kind of weapon were you thinking of doing? We have a huge selection! I just need to know what you are thinking.”

“Um. What do you have in broadswords?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! The next update should be either Saturday or Monday!  
> Depends really on work.


End file.
